Went to see "The Incredibles"Follow

Gbaji,

Smash is even "righter" than normal.

You've got no leg to stand on here.

Vonnegut is doing exactly what you said was soo ludicrous.

Admit it and move on.

Sigh. Look. What Vonnegut intended or what he said he intended after the fact has no bearing. With the exception of Smash (who would never make stuff up to support his point), every single person I've ever heard of who's read that story has immediately assumed that it's about the absurdity of taking equality too far.


Whether Vonnegut intended it to be a parody of the conservative position or not, he managed to write something that 99%+ of all readers will see as a valid argument in support of the conservative position on this issue. Thus, it is defacto a valid argument in support of the conservative position. Whether Vonnegut likes it or not, or whether he intended it or not.

If it's a parody but no one notices, then it's not really a parody is it? It's a real argument and a valid position. Like Smash's John Stewart argument. If he takes a Republican position on something intending on it being a humorous parody of Republicans, but virtually everyone who hears his bit finds it's to be a valid and compelling argument in support of the Republican's then it is a valid argument in support of that position. Whether Stewart intended it or not. He can say after the fact "Hey folks. It was a joke. I didn't really mean that" all he wants, but if at the end of the day his bit convinced people that the Republicans are right (on whatever it is he's talking about), then that's exactly what he did. If someone later parallels his argument with a similar one and that argument also compells people to agree with the Republican position then that's *also* a compelling argument. It's not a parody because John meant for his to be.


Why am I not surprised that Liberals like Smash can't seem to wrap their brains around the difference between intent and result? What Vonnegut meant to say is a purely academic issue. What the vast majority of the people reading that story walk away from it believing *is*. And those people overwhelmingly see it as a story that points out the dangers of enforced equality. Like it or not, that's what the story tells us.

Gbaji's main tool of defense is writing huge paragraphs of text - He knows that very few people will waste their time reading them, thus no one will see of the mistakes

Sigh. Look. What Vonnegut intended or what he said he intended after the fact has no bearing. With the exception of Smash (who would never make stuff up to support his point), every single person I've ever heard of who's read that story has immediately assumed that it's about the absurdity of taking equality too far.


The fact that your peer group is as equally ignorant and oblivious as you are isn't really a very compelling argument, I'm afraid.

Let me boil down your entire argument in this thread so people can asses it objectively:

"What the author was doing doesn't matter because I didn't understand it. People who say they did understand it must be lying because I didn't undestand it."

Again, not very compelling. If I typed a letter on a page everytime you didn't understand something I could fill the Library of Congress with the resulting volumes.

My "peer group" includes virtually ever single human on the planet who has read the story Smash. Your's apparently includes you, and a few people who read up on Vonnegut, realized he was pro-socialist, and have since desperately tried to rationalize how he could write such a story that so obviously seems to be anti-socialist.


Just about every critic that read it understood instantly. In fact many of the negative reviews of the story said something to the effect of "Slower people who read this will think it's an argument against socialism"

That's why I mentioned it in my first post.

The only people that didn't get it were those just not bright enough to understand the subtlety.

Clearly this included you and people you know. Congratulations, you and your freinds are average. I imagine you get suckered into a great deal of things because you're not bright enough to understand them.

Like voting for Bush, for instance.

Hahahha.

Man, I kill me.


Um. No. It's more like this:

1. If you have to explain your art, then it's not good art.

2. If virtually everyone who views/reads your art comes away with a particular impression about it, then that's what it's about.


C'mon Smash. I'm a pretty crappy sculpter. If I decide to make a ceramic elephant, and every single person who sees it says: "Wow. That's a pretty nice ceramic doggie", then it's a ceramic doggie. Not an elephant. I may write in my memoirs years later that I was really trying to make an elephant, and that may make an amusing anectdote, but if everyone thinks it's a dog then that's what it is.


Why is that such a hard concept for you to grasp? Art is about what the viewer/reader sees in it. Most people see that story as anti-socialist. You can sit back and giggle to yourself about how we're all "missing the point" or something, but you'll be "giggling to yourself" because everyone else will be agreeing with me and people like me.


Whether he intended it or not is irrelevant. What Vonnegut succeeded in doing was writing a story that does an excellent job of bashing the concept of using laws to enforce equality. Everything else is purely academic.


Do me a favor and please show that virtualy everyone who read it thought the way you do. So far, you've demonstrated that people who aren't that bright thought the way you do. I granted you that in the first post.

Vonnegut does't write you, sport. Micheal Crighton writes for you. Peris Anonthy writes for you. You're not capable of reading things written b the likes of Vonnegut or Joyce or Pynchon or Stoppard or Beckett or Miller. You can't understand them, you're not equipped for it.

Finnegan's Wake is pointless gibberish for you, Slaughterhouse 5 is a science fiction story, The Crucible is about witches, and Waiting for Godot is a stupid pointless play about two guys waiting for someone.

It's ok. It's good to know your limitations.

You two still going at it? Who needs sleep!


Nah, I'm just giving him more rope. I have nothing to argue here, everyone I know understood the story cleary the first time. Vonnegutt's intnet is crystal clear. If I don't post, though, he doesn't continue to demonstrate his lack of credibility and we run the risk that someone might take him seriously some day.

Can't have that.

It seemed to me that he was against forced equality

Edited, Wed Dec 8 01:29:49 2004 by inasnum

Source? Proof? Show me any serious critic taking the position that Vonnegut is not pointing out a potential pitfall of taking equality movements too far. Heck. Find me *any* critic Smash. After all, since the story was writen in 61, and you weren't born for 10 more years, any criticism of the work would have to have been in writing, right? Should be trivial for you to find something to support your argument if it's such an obvious and well known thing.




No. Some ultra-liberal teacher probably had you read the story in class and convinced (brainwashed) you that that's what it meant and "everyone" knows it. In the real world everyone who reads that story sees it as a cautionary tale about social extremes *including* socialism, and most particularly the idea of legistlating equality.



Only if you define bright as "people who believe the same BS that I do".



Sure Smash. I did that tonight. I printed out the story and handed it to my roomate (after she'd just finished writing lectures for two UCSD classes). I even edited out the bit in the link you provided where that professor mentions the issue of equality to make it fair and unbiased. She has never read the story.

She came to virtually the same conclusion about the story that I did. Imagine that! Her first statement literally was "This should be required reading for all those soccer moms who take their kids to those games where no one keeps score because they don't want to hurt the kids self esteem". She "got it" right off the bat Smash. What's your excuse?

If I hand it out to 10 people at work tomorrow, how many do you think will also think that it's about the danger of over pursuing equality? I'm pretty sure it'll be 10.


So far, aside from you every single person I've ever heard of who's read this story has had the same impression about it. You are literally the first person I've ever encountered that thought the story meant something different. Not surprisingly, you can't explain why or point to anything in the story itself that supports your opinion. You just go off on some weird bit about Vonnegut being a socialist. Just because the man advocated socialism does *not* meant that he didn't see any pitfalls to it. Only someone like you who sees things in black and white would think that.

You are literally the first person I've ever encountered that thought the story meant something different.


I don't think anyone was under the illusion that you knew anyone even vaguely as bright as me. Clearly, should you ever meet anyone who was, they'd immeadiately laugh out loud at you and that would likely end your aquaintance.